A Technical Approach to Reduce Shale Gas Development Cost

Shale gas is one typical low-quality marginal gas resource featuring in small drainage volume from a single well as well as high technical requirements on drilling,completion and fracturing.Besides,it requires significant operation workload and high development cost,posing difficulty for commercial development.Therefore, to find a solution to lower the cost of shale gas development is of great significance.Based on the evolutionary history and development trend of the low-cost shale gas development technologies in North America,and the comparison of shale gas reservoirs between China and North America,it was considered that low resource quality,mountainous landform,complex geologic structure and high horizontal stress of shale gas reservoirs in China make the development more difficult,which pose high requirement and development cost issues.In view of all those aspects,technical approaches including development in appropriate scale,fine reservoir characterization as well as enhancement of drilling efficiency and reservoir stimulation were proposed.It was suggested that priority be given to slim hole drilling,water-based drilling fluid and waterless fracturing.Development mode and techniques for shale gas development in mountainous areas should be gradually developed and cost reduction of shale gas development would be realized through techniques integration.